Battlefield 1943 First Look Preview

We go to war with Battlefield's first downloadable entry.

It's rare to witness a publisher reveal a first-person-shooter that's exclusively delivered as downloadable content. At this year's New York Comic-Con, UGO's Russ Frushtick and 1UP's Tina Sanchez had the opportunity of checking out EA's latest downloadable game, Battlefield 1943.

Tina: The gameplay's easy to jump into, and is pretty addicting. As a newcomer to the franchise, I'm quite impressed with the "ticket" concept, while also having the traditional "capture-the-flag" objective. From my understanding, tickets (which both teams start with equal numbers of) are docked for each death and base you lose control over, and a team can never earn more. I particularly appreciate how a battle can continue even after all bases are controlled -- it will speed up the ticket-depletion process of course, but there's still an opportunity for redemption if your team has an excellent kill-to-death ratio. Is this similar to Battlefield 1942?

Russ: It's extremely similar to BF1942. If anything, it's like a simplified version of that game, since there're only three classes (assault, sniper, rifleman) versus the standard five. The new game does blend a lot of the classes into one -- the assault class is now equipped with a rocket launcher, and the sniper has demo packs to take out tanks. The simplification definitely fits, since downloadable games are usually a bit easier to pick up and play, but I think folks may be put off by the fact that there are only three maps (Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and Wake Island), which seems a little low for a game that could cost between 15 and 20 bucks. Especially since they're just remakes of maps we've already seen. The map we played today, Wake Island, had the same shape and spawn points as it did in the original BF1942.

I will say that the use of Bad Company's Frostbite engine adds the much-loved element of being able to blow gaping holes in buildings, so the developers are definitely working to add on to what the franchise has done in the past.

Click the image above to check out all Battlefield 1943 screens.

Tina: Yes -- I found myself blowing buildings up for the sake of laughing at my destructive powers. I also found it exciting to control a cluster of planes to bomb an enemy's territory. It definitely adds to the experience if you don't want to run-and-gun the whole time. Unfortunately, I had two big complaints about the game as it stands now; there's no kill cam, and at the end of each round, you don't know how many kills or deaths you had -- just "points" earned. So it will be interesting to see what kind of improvements DICE will make from now until BF1943's release sometime in June. At the very least, I'd hope the end-game stats will be better. And when EA finally decides on a price, I hope that it takes the lack of maps into account.

Russ: Yeah, there's definitely room for improvement, though 1943 fills a pretty large hole in the PSN and XBLA library for solid multiplayer first-person shooters, so I appreciate the effort being made. The element that'll really help push the title over the top is the ranking and medal system, which is something we didn't really get to go into. It's not pulling off anything on the level of Call of Duty 4 perks, but online stat tracking, and some sort of character progression beyond achievements and trophies would do wonders. All in all, though, the game shows promise and I think the simplified approach should get new folks into the series.

Comments (8)

Battle Tease 2009

"Check this out guys; we'll give them 3 maps for $15. Then we'll give 'em 3 more, that's $30. 2 map packs later and they bought a full price game. We don't even have to spend the 3/4 of a development cycle's worth of time and labor to design a single player experience."

Good job EA. Totally raped the fools on xbox live didn't you?

Don't buy this. This will only encourage more. Keep in mind that EA is a competitor with other companies. If EA succeeds here, then their competitor’s will be FORCED to follow suit, just like CVS is apparently forced to put one on the opposite corner every time a new Walgreens goes up.

I guess CoD will be next, followed by Ubisoft and Rainbow Six or GRAW!

BF 1943 FTW!!

lets hope thye dont botch it like they did BF2 wne they brought it from PC to xbox/xbox360 man did it suck. it was SLOW/SMALL. nothing like the actual PC game and people think it was good. waste of money!! BF is supposed to be MASSIVE!! 32 Vs. 32

Really, WWII AGAIN?!

I really would have prefered them take a stab at the futuristic combat again, like with 2142. I bought 2142 and it felt really rushed and incomplete to me. There wasn't much about that game that felt complete, but I guess they decide to take the route of "least common denominator" shooter and went WWII again. Oh well, as long as it's good I suppose. Kind of interesting this coming out on PSN and Warhawk still having as big of a following as it does. Sony needs to release it on PC with cross platform play.

Interesting, BUT...

Hearing about this game only made me realize how much I'd love a new, super pumped up, full remake of the original. My first multiplayer shooter (abeit offline, as my internet was never good enough at the time) was 1942, and I'd love it if they remade (and improved upon) the original game, as well as making it visually stunning. I'll probably just have to hold over with BF:H and wait until they make Battlefield: Mirror's Edge.

Sounds cool

I do hope it has a killcam though. At this point I think every shooter should have SOMETHING that will immediately answer the question we all have when were killed. I'm speaking of course of the "HOW THE FUCK DID I DIE?! Where was he?!" question.

No kill/death stats = good

Regarding the complaint that the game only shows personal points at
the end of the round instead of kill/death stats -- why does it even
matter? Battlefields have always been team oriented, objective based
games. Kill/death information only serves to emphasize personal gain, not the team objective (you know, the actual point of the game). I just think that we can try to discourage this behavior in team oriented games by not
indulging their selfishness via kill/death stats.

There
are too many people that play team based games that don't give a crap
about the team. If you've played any of the Battlefields on a regular
basis, you know that some matches are GREAT, while others aren't. The
main separation between the two is the element of teamwork. A team
that is working together, but is losing the match, is likely still
having more fun than a team that is all off doing their own thing.

Wow.

This just doesn't seem like a very educated preview and it looks like you guys just want to turn Battlefield into Call of Duty (Especially you Tina). Not every shooter needs to have a Killcam, for a lot of people Killcams are annoying and take you out of the experience, so the lack of a killcam is not really a negative, just your preference. Have either of you really got into a Battlefield game? DICE's maps are so well done that you onle need three, any more than that for $20 or less would be excessive. These maps are well-crafted from the ground up by DICE to be perfected maps, even if they are rehashes. The only thing I think you guys have right in this article is the idea of having a more in-depth stat-tracking system, that is definitely a neccessity.